Update

I’ve hauled the S-Pou out of the loft and intend to start flying it again at our clubs indoor evenings. Hence I’ve moved its page out of Historic and into the RC Aircraft section and updated it accordingly.

Hopefully I’ll update the blog more often in 2015, I’ve written quite a lot of code recently, and done some cool things with my Raspberry Pi. I must also try and write up the renovation of the Sea Rover!

So I’ve made some progress on my electrification of the Mini Tyro. After a bit of maths and some guess work I ordered a D2822/14 1450kv outrunner and a Turnigy 18A Plush. The plan is to try a APC 8×4 and a 7×45 prop on it to see what power it draws.

I made a start by removing the Mills from its mount and cutting a hatch into the wood above the tank. Then the tank was removed and the tank bay floor cut away. The next step was to remove the old firewall because it was too far back to mount the motor on, I could have used standoffs but that would have left a rather small bay behind it for the battery. A new firewall was cut and installed about 3/4″ further forward than the old one. This gives a sensible clearance between the front of the fuselage sides and the rear of the prop but also has some room for adjusting the right/down thrust

As it happens the battery needs to live under the wing, but the space previously occupied by the tank is a perfect home for the ESC, with the Receiver living just behind it, slightly in front of the wing.

The battery has quite a lot of room to move around under the wing so it will need some sort of restraint, some velcro is likely. The front end needs tidying somewhat, the covering is looking tatty and I’ve yet to make a cover for the tank, now ESC bay.

Having said that, I’ve weighed it and run it up and all seems fine.

Weights

Complete airframe minus battery is 259g

The 3S 500mAh battery is 47g

The 3S 850 mAh battery is 67g

Power

Using a 3s and the 7×4.5 prop it pulled 5.9A / 57W WOT. Giving roughly 79.3 W/lb which is probably about right for the little Tyro. I expect the 8×4 might give a good bit more and maybe even too much. We’ll see!

I’ve yet to test the 8×4 because it needs reaming out to fit the prop adapter.

I’ll post some pictures when its finished, although the temptation to fly it as it is now is quite large!

I bought this model just before we started packing to move house, so it never had many flights. I grabbed it mega cheap at Wings and Wheels thinking I would probably fly it a few times and then gut it for the electronics which would go into another of the excellent Stevens Aero kits. However life got in the way, and then we moved and now I have nowhere to fly indoors. So sadly it sits unused in the loft. I’ve yet to decide its fate! Although writing this I think maybe I ought to get it out and fly it in the field on the way to work on calm mornings Until then, I’ve moved its page into the historic section.

After a bit of coding and a weekend away, I’ve got round to spending a bit of time with the Beaver. Next step is to add some colour, I didn’t take any snaps of it in its plain white state, but the shot below shows the wings masked up and the blue applied.

I have since removed the masking tape and left it to dry, tomorrow night hopefully I can get the blue onto the fuselage.

So about 8 weeks ago while we were down here in Wiltshire, I flew the Dynamic-S up at the White Horse and made a bit of a dumb error in reading the wind. I thought it was coming along the slope and hitting the bowel, but I learnt the hard way that actually it was coming from slightly behind the hill causing some horrible turbulence around my normal take off and landing spot. Well, to cut a long story short the DS had a bit of a rough landing, the nose snapping clean off, but otherwise causing no damage. I had a good ponder about how to get her back in the air, eventually deciding that a new fuselage at £20 or so was the easiest and probably safest route.

HobbyKing UK didn’t have them in stock in August, but they came in a week or so ago, just in time for me to transplant the gubbins and get her ready for this weekend which was our next planned trip out west. Friday say a nice day, but with no wind, so I flew her from the flat field at the top of the hill, about an 8 minute flight with no unpleasant surprises.

Today the wind was blowing about 15mph from the North East, swinging round to ENE at times. That meant I had to use the eastern edge of the slope, of which I have less experience. I need’nt have worried however, she was up in the air for a good 30 minutes, with still a few minutes of battery left when I landed so she could have easily flown for longer. Brilliant flight, lovely aircraft on a surprise sunny September afternoon.

I’m becoming more confident with her, rolls are nice and axial and I’m practising slow rolls with rudder fed in to keep altitude. I even managed a inverted circuit, it was a little rough, but I made it all the way round

I’ve included a little pic below so you can see the view I have while I’m up on the hill.

The editor of the magazine I take, posted on the accompanying forum a little while ago explaining that some time back there was a free plan published for a model called the Foam Fing, to celebrate this they had a few of the foam boards printed up with their logo and the name of the model. A few of these had recently been found and an offer was made of a free board in return for the recipient designing a model for it.

One of the other guys on the forum has dug out the original plans and posted them to the thread, they can bee seen here.

This wasn’t an opportunity to miss so I signed up without giving it much thought. Things began to feel real last week however, when the foam board turned up in the post!

Its 6mm foam with card on each side, the sort of stuff Hobby Craft sell in quite large A3/A2 sheets for a few pounds.

I started to sketch some aircraft on paper and sort of started to be drawn to a canard. I sketched a few canards before coming up with what looked like a pretty little thing and with proportions that might work. Figuring that a chuckie glider might at least make me feel more confident, I set about cutting balsa. The result can be seen here, which with a little nose weight seems to happily fly the length of the garden in a nice gentle glide path.

So there we are then, I have a board from RCM&E and three A2 boards I picked up from Hobby Craft at the weekend, and a chuckie glider which sees to fly ok.I want to crack on with the Beaver first, but a plan is forming in my head

Well a little under 2 weeks after I started, I’ve finished the construction of the Beaver. Last night I spent a good while giving it a thorough sanding to ensure there were no rough edges that would stick through the tissue, now she is ready for covering.

I’ve yet to decide what scheme to paint her in, I’ll possibly use the decals provided in the kit, but there are so many Beavers in nice colour schemes that is seems a shame not to try and emulate something a bit more colourful than the blue and white of the kit. I expect it’ll take me a while to get her covered up nicely so there is a bit of time to ponder! The picture below is her pinned together before the covering starts, I’m pretty pleased with how the build has turned out, lets hope I don’t make a mess of the covering!